GRE试题四(2)(在线收听

(5) published, copyrighted, and sold by professionals. Never-
theless, improvisation remained central to gospel music.
One has only to listen to the recorded repertoire of gospel
songs to realize that Black gospel singers rarely sang a
song precisely the same way twice and never according to
(10)its exact musical notation. They performed what jazz musi-
cians call "head arrangements" proceeding from their own
feelings and from the way "the spirit" moved them at the
time. This improvisatory element was reflected in the man-
ner in which gospel music was published. Black gospel
(15)composers scored the music intended for White singing
groups fully, indicating the various vocal parts and the
accompaniment, but the music produced for Black singers
included only a vocal line and piano accompaniment.

17.Which of the following best describes "head arrange-
ment" as the term is used in line 11?
(A) A published version of a gospel song produced for
use by Black singers
(B) A gospel song based on a slave spiritual
(C) A musical score shared by a gospel singer and a
jazz musician
(D) An informally written composition intended for
use by a gospel singer
(E) An improvised performance inspired by the
singer’s emotions

18.The author mentions "folk fashion" (line 4) most likely
in order to
(A) counter an assertion about the role of improvi-
sation in music created by Black people
(B) compare early gospel music with gospel music
written later in the twentieth century
(C) make a distinction between gospel music and
slave spirituals
(D) introduce a discussion about the dissemination of
slave spirituals
(E) describe a similarity between gospel music and
slave spirituals

19.The passage suggests which of the following about
Black gospel music and slave spirituals?
(A) Both became widely known in the early twentieth
century.
(B) Both had an important improvisatory element.
(C) Both were frequently performed by jazz
musicians.
(D) Both were published with only a vocal line and
piano accompaniment.
(E) Both were disseminated chiefly by Black singing
groups.

20.Of the following sentences, which is most likely to
have immediately preceded the passage?
(A) Few composers of gospel music drew on traditions
such as the spiritual in creating their songs.
(B) Spirituals and Black gospel music were derived
from the same musical tradition.
(C) The creation and singing of spirituals, practiced by
Black Americans before the Civil War, continued
after the war.
(D) Spirituals and gospel music can be clearly
distinguished from one another.
(E) Improvisation was one of the primary charac-
teristics of the gospel music created by Black
musicians.

About a century ago, the Swedish physical scientist
Arrhenius proposed a law of classical chemistry that relates
chemical reaction rate to temperature. According to the
Arrhenius equation, chemical reaction are increasingly
(5) unlikely to occur as temperatures approach absolute zero,
and at absolute zero (zero degrees Kelvin, or minus 273
degrees Celsius) reactions stop. However, recent experi-
mental evidence reveals that although the Arrhenius equa-
tion is generally accurate in describing the kind of chemical
(10)reaction that occurs at relatively high temperatures, at tem-
peratures closer to zero a quantum- mechanical effect known
as tunneling comes into play; this effect accounts for chem-
ical reactions that are forbidden by the principles of classi-
cal chemistry. Specifically, entire molecules can "tunnel"
(15)through the barriers of repulsive forces from other mole -cules and chemically react even though these molecules do
not have sufficient energy, according to classical chemistry,
to overcome the repulsive barrier.
The rate of any chemical reaction, regardless of the tem-
(20)perature at which it takes place, usually depends on a very
important characteristic known as its activation energy. Any
molecule can be imagined to reside at the bottom of a so-
called potential well of energy. A chemical reaction corre-
sponds to the transition of a molecule from the bottom of
(25)one potential well to the bottom of another. In classical
chemistry, such a transition can be accomplished only by
going over the potential barrier between the wells, the
height of which remains constant and is called the activa-
tion energy of the reaction. In tunneling, the reacting mole-
(30)cules tunnel from the bottom of one to the bottom of another
well without having to rise over the barrier between the
two wells. Recently researchers have developed the concept
of tunneling temperature: the temperature below which
tunneling transitions greatly outnumber Arrhenius transi-
(35)tions, and classical mechanics gives way to its quantum
counterpart.
This tunneling phenomenon at very low temperatures
suggested my hypothesis about a cold prehistory of life:
the formation of rather complex organic molecules in the
(40)deep cold of outer space, where temperatures usually reach
only a few degrees Kelvin. Cosmic rays (high-energy pro-
tons and other particles) might trigger the synthesis of
simple molecules, such as interstellar formaldehyde, in
dark clouds of interstellar dust. Afterward complex organic
(45)molecules would be formed, slowly but surely, by means
of tunneling. After I offered my hypothesis, Hoyle and
Wickramasinghe argued that molecules of interstellar form-
aldehyde have indeed evolved into stable polysaccharides
such as cellulose and starch. Their conclusions, although
(50)strongly disputed, have generated excitement among inves-
tigators such as myself who are proposing that the galactic
clouds are the places where the prebiological evolution of
compounds necessary to life occurred.
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